When Have You Practiced Enough?
1. Practice Fatigue 🥱
Practicing an instrument is a fine balance between under-practicing and over-practicing. If you don’t practice enough then the chances are that you aren’t going to progress as quickly as you could, you may even find that you don’t progress at all. Whereas if you over-practice then you can start making mistakes that you wouldn’t usually make, which can undo a lot of the work you have put in so far and it can feel quite demoralising.
So we have to try and find a balance somewhere in the middle, meaning practicing regularly enough and also learning when you’ve done enough and its best to call it quits for the day!
While under-practicing is a relatively easy fix (daily practice or at least regular visits to the instrument), over-practicing can be a much trickier situation to notice. This is because when you are working on something, it can take quite some time before we realise that our brain is tired.
So, how do you notice over-practicing quicker and how can you get the most from your practice before you should stop for the day?
2. Session Blocks 🧱
Well the first thing to realise is that mental stamina in itself is something that needs training. At the beginning of learning an instrument you are trying to concentrate for long periods of time that you maybe aren’t used to (at least in this way). There is also a lot of new information, which means harder concentration. So, at the beginning you will find that you might not be able to practice for long periods of time without feeling like the information just isn’t going into your head anymore.
The best way to combat this is to practice little and often. It may be difficult to practice for long periods of time at once, but you can definitely walk away and come back later in the day and effectively double your practice time!
2 X 20 Minutes > 1 X 40 Minutes
During my days at music college, in the morning I would practice for 2 hours (6am-8am) and then another 2 hours (10am-12pm). Later in the day I would then practice for 2 hours (2pm-4pm) and again for 2 hours (6pm-8pm - usually a rehearsal or similar). I would have achieved far less if I had attempted to practice for 8 hours in one session (6am-2pm).
3. The 20-Minute Rule ⏰
You may (or may not) have heard of a time management method called the “Pomodoro Technique”. This technique is widely used as a way of blocking time to complete tasks. You do this by setting a timer for 20 minutes and during that time you focus on 1 task before setting a new timer and focusing on another task. This method works great for a variety of tasks, but it also works great for learning an instrument.
In the case of learning an instrument the Pomodoro Technique can help us avoid mental fatigue by time capping particular tasks, and we can also use it (if you are working on multiple pieces) to determine the time you allocate to working on each piece.
However, the reason that I am mentioning this is because of the psychology behind it. Interestingly, there are several reasons that this technique works.
Firstly, there have been several studies that show that if we have 1 day to complete a task…then we will take 1 day to complete the task. Whereas if we had 2 hours to complete the same task, then we will get it done in 2 hours. This shows us that by giving ourselves time restraints to complete tasks, we can be much more focused and efficient. Secondly, dividing practice up into chunks makes it much easier to digest and tolerate which can help avoid procrastination and overwhelm.
This is to say that giving your self time restricted blocks (20 minutes or less) to complete tasks within your practice can help you retain focus for much longer. Having said this, it is also important that those blocks aren’t too short (ideally no shorter than 5 minutes) as “Set-Shifting” (Task Switching) too frequently can also tire the brain.
4. Diminishing Returns 💰
The term “diminishing returns” comes from the world of finance as a way of determining where the most value can be found and where the value is no longer worth the effort. Now, this term is very often applied to lots of situations and practice is no different!
At the start of your practice session, every repetition of a problem you are trying to solve is at its most valuable. If you find a mistake and you try to correct it, you have a much better chance at being able to improve it. However, like a sand-timer, your focus is finite and your focus begins running out throughout the practice session.
This means that the biggest gains you will make are always going to be towards the start of a practice session when you have the most mental resources available. This is one of the reasons why it’s always best to begin with scales and sight reading, because these are going to help you with lots of pieces of music…and so are very valuable to apply more of your focus on.
As the practice session goes on, there will come a point where fixing a mistake or learning some new notes is taking you much longer than it did at the start of the session. This is when it might be time to take the wins for the day and come back later. If you think about it, learning an instrument is an accumulation of many, many practice sessions over time, and so rather than worrying about spending the next half an hour trying to force something, it makes sense to save your energy and use it later when you will be able to learn it twice as fast again.
5. Multiple Visits ♺
Many of you may have been through the process of moving to a new home. You have the van outside which you need to fill with all of your belongings to take to your new home. The question is; do you put on your weight lifting belt and try and take everything you own in one trip? Or do you take several trips, knowing that you are chipping away at the job in hand? (I know many men will attempt the former - myself included).
In this situation the best approach would obviously be to take many visits with a few belongings at a time. As the day continues, you might start fatiguing and need to stop, but then you can come back stronger tomorrow and carry on.
This is a very similar situation with learning music. You have a piece of music in front of you, do you sit down and try to learn it all in one go? Or do you take many visits to the instrument and save your sanity in the process?
The point is that learning a piece of music will always require multiple visits, you can solve a few problems today with a fresh mind and fingers and another few problems tomorrow. Over time you will have completed what once looked like a daunting task!
This means that practicing regularly and doing a little bit is much more important than practicing infrequently and doing a lot! If you don’t believe me, then next time you move home…remember to bring your lifting belt!
Matthew Cawood
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